Is there enough support on the fringe right, among the self-described “freedom movement” that most prominently manifested in the occupation of parliament grounds, to make it to parliament? This evening’s 1News Verian poll suggested there might be some momentum among the frequently warring, conspiracy-friendly parties, with Matt King’s DemocracyNZ holding 1%, the Freedoms NZ umbrella group led by Brian Tamaki and Sue Grey appearing on 1%, and the One Party (which hopes to be renamed the New Zeal Party) doing the same.

Dig into the detail, however, and three lots of 1% don’t make 3%, as a result of rounding. The component parties of Freedoms NZ total 0.8%, Democracy NZ is on 0.6% and the One Party on 0.5%. That’s 1.9% combined. There’s also the New Conservative Party, which registered 0.4%.

Then there’s NZ First. They’re hardly “fringe right”; they defy classification, perhaps. But according to a feature on Stuff over the weekend the party has been seeking to “ride a ‘freedom wave’ to parliament”. Winston Peters has lambasted the media for failing to cover his public meetings, saying, “it is clear the surge is coming whether they like it or not.” NZ First finished on 3.1% in this poll, a consistent showing from the last two in May (3.2%) and March (3.1%).

Read about the strange battle for the fringe right vote here.

National could govern with the support of the Act Party, were the results in a new poll for 1News to play out on election day. But only just.

The survey by Verian (formerly Kantar Public, and before that Colmar Brunton) puts National on 35%, down two points from the last poll, and Labour on 33%, also down two points. Act is up a point to 12% and the Greens up three to 10%. Te Pāti Māori and New Zealand First both record 3%, with Top on 2%. (12% of all respondents said they didn’t know or wouldn’t say.)

The party votes above would amount in parliament to 61 of 120 seats for the right bloc of National and Act, with Labour, Greens and TPM taking 59 seats combined.

When it comes to preferred prime minister, Chris Hipkins fell by a point to 24%, with Christopher Luxon closing the gap on his rival by rising two points to 20%. David Seymour registered 7%.

The 1News poll was in the field from July 8-12, so followed headlines around Kiri Allan’s working relationships and Chris Hipkins’ China trip, but was all but completed when the Labour leader delivered his “end of story” ruling-out on wealth or capital gains taxes.

The government’s kicking off the first week back in parliament after the recess period with a suite of policies targeted at youth crime.

It includes making using young people to commit crime an aggravating factor for an adult and an amendment to the current law that will make posting crimes online an aggravating factor during sentencing. That’s something the National Party proposed just a fortnight ago in an effort to crack down on a social media trend among ram raiders.

The government will also give additional powers to the Family Court, giving it the ability to require – not request – young offenders undertake community activities, like cleaning graffiti.

“Prevention, protection and accountability is our focus,” prime minister Chris Hipkins said. “So today, I’ve set out a first tranche of changes that will make offenders more accountable, back our police with greater powers, and work to break the cycle of offending.”

Hipkins said using a child to commit a crime was “cowardly, exploitative and destroys lives” – and so the consequences must be serious.

The “social media amendment” would send a “strong signal” that partaking in illegal activity and then sharing it online was unacceptable, said Hipkins.

Asked about the similarities between this policy and National’s, Hipkins said it was “coincidence, maybe” and that the government had been working on this for “about five weeks”. Some of the other announcements had taken even longer to draft up, he added.

Hipkins said he would also be speaking with social media companies to see if there is anything else they can do to crack down on illegal activity being shared widely on the internet.

As for the total policy package: “None of this is about locking up children and perpetuating the cycle of crime. It’s about accountability and consequences to help break the cycle of offending,” Hipkins said. “We’ll continue the careful and intensive work we’re doing to prevent young people from undertaking crime in the first place.”

Work to get the legislation passed will begin before the election, but Hipkins said it would likely carry over into the next term.

This update was amended from the original version, which said a new offence was being created for people who use young people to commit a crime. At 5.35pm, the government sent out a correction that said using young people to commit a crime would be an aggravating factor, not a new offence.

Fresh from taking selfies at the University of Auckland’s Re-O Week this afternoon, opposition leader Christopher Luxon has joined his housing spokesperson Chris Bishop to announce a new policy targeted at students.

Under a National-led government, people younger than 30-years-old would be able to use their KiwiSaver to pay for the bond on rental properties. The scheme would be capped at five years and the money would either be returned to the person’s KiwiSaver or moved onto a new rental at the end of each tenancy.

The policy was put forward by the youth branch of the National Party – the Young Nats – and, according to Bishop, was extensively consulted on.

“This is a commonsense change that will make it easier for people to pay for bonds, and free up cash for young people. Young people have told me they’d like to have the option of using their KiwiSaver savings to sort their bond payments, and that this policy will make a difference,” said Bishop.

“Using KiwiSaver savings for rent bonds will only be available for people aged under 30, and will only be available for five years’ worth of bond payments. This reflects the fact that we want young people joining KiwiSaver early and staying in for the long haul.”

Bishop said the policy was run past KiwiSaver providers, who noted there would need to be some “background” work to make sure it could operate as intended. “We’re confident we can make it work,” he added.

National’s stand at O Week was about a metre away from the Greens. But MPs Chlöe Swarbrick and Ricardo Menendez-March weren’t impressed with the new policy, telling The Spinoff it didn’t address the fact that rents themselves were too high. Even if the bonds were covered, “students can’t afford the weekly rent,” noted Menendez-March. He also said that – from experience – it wasn’t always easy to get a full bond back, meaning students may miss out on adding it back into their KiwiSaver.

Meanwhile, Swarbrick was astonished that such a “technocratic” policy could have been derived from a party’s youth wing.

The Green Party has pledged to introduce new legislation that would restore Māori control over Māori land – if elected back into government this October.

The Hoki Whenua Mai plan would amend the Public Works Act to prevent whenua Māori being taken in future and provide a clear path for the return of land previously taken. “Our plan ends perpetual leases returning full control of the whenua back to Māori landowners,” said party co-leader Marama Davidson.

“Colonial land theft has caused severe disconnection and locked whānau in poverty, and this has fed ongoing inequities for Māori within the health, education and justice systems. Returning land to tangata whenua is the right thing to do to begin to address these inequities.”

Davidson said her party would also launch a commission of inquiry into land dispossession to investigate land taken through breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. “We will remove the 2008 deadline to lodge new treaty claims and reinstate the ability for the Waitangi Tribunal to make recommendations in relation to privately owned land, as that land comes on the property market,” she said.

University of Auckland academic Troy Baisden and Catherine Leining from Motu Research talk to Benard Hickey about their new guide that gives a unique insight into how we can adapt fairly to a myriad of problems facing Aotearoa in the coming decades. They discuss what this research means, what the next steps are and what keeps them optimistic that we can achieve a just transition.

Listen to the latest episode of When the Facts Change below

Happy poll day. TVNZ’s political editor Jessica Mutch McKay tweeted that there will be a 1News Kantar Public Verian poll at 6pm tonight.*

It comes at an interesting time. A recent poll from Talbot Mills had Labour slipping in support, with a National-Act coalition comfortably ahead. A subsequent Curia poll showed a dead heat between the left and right blocs.

* In a tweet, Mutch McKay said the name of 1News’ polling company has changed from Kantar to Verian.

According to one texter to RNZ’s Morning Report today, Election 2023 is going to be the potholes and ram raids election. It’s a slightly simplistic view but… might it prove to be true?

The National Party this weekend launched an attack on the nation’s pot holes, warning those pesky damaged roads would be filled in by a new $500 million pothole repair fund.

It’s prompted a tit for tat between the opposition and the government, with both accusing one another of being to blame for the state of our roads (you can read more about the weekend’s politics in this opinion piece by Toby Manhire).

Speaking to RNZ, National’s transport spokesperson Simeon Brown said his party’s new policy was an important proposal. “This is a reality of our roads being worse then they’ve ever been… our roads are incredibly important to a productive economy,” he said. Some of the funding will come from reallocated road safety money, said Brown, including from the cash set aside to create new media barriers and on speed limitations.

Transport minister David Parker said there was nothing wrong with doing more to enhance road safety – but that the government already was.

He said the opposition was wrong and that Brown was being “dishonest” with this claim that the problem had become worse under the current government. “[In] 2018 we repaired 39,000 potholes, 2022 we repaired 54,000. The maintenance budget’s gone up from $1.7 billion over three years when [National] they left office, to $2.8 billion under us,” said Parker. “The underlying problem is actually very simple for people to understand. The last government… froze the funding for maintenance and therefore the number of roads that could be resurfaced halved.”

It wasn’t entirely the fault of the previous government, said Parker, with major weather events this year causing havoc on the roading network. But, he said, the underlying issue was a lack of maintenance under National.

Local MP Chlöe Swarbrick joined Waiheke residents on Sunday to protest a 19% price hike on some ferry tickets, 1News reports. A peak-hour adult return fare to downtown Auckland, bought in person, now costs $59 – making it the world’s most expensive ferry fare per km, the protesters claim. Organiser Bianca Ranson says operator Fullers360 are responsible for some residents having to “choose between groceries for the week or hospital care” and that local businesses are noticing a dip in foot traffic as fewer Aucklanders take the ferry to the island.

Fullers’ chief executive Mike Horne says the new ticket price is “designed for use by the infrequent traveller and visitors” and that locals can make significant savings by using a multi-trip pass or travelling off-peak.

Want to read The Bulletin in full? Click here to subscribe and join over 38,000 New Zealanders who start each weekday with the biggest stories in politics, business, media and culture.